It finally happened.

[rusty hannon]

You know we often hear someone wakes up to see a long lived tank has suddenly died overnight and noone knows why?well ,there's always an answer and yes it happened to me 2days ago.I'm quite bummed to sag the least but to b honest I've been battling something for a while now .my tank is a 28 gal jbj nano.at first look it was a great setup and wanted to try my hand ata nano.After running one for years have found a major problem and a tank killer.Of course its an aio with little separate places in back for different things but in truth its a sludge factory that is almost impossible to clean,especially a tank that's up n running. A few of my fish were telling me of this problem by demanding a water change every 3 days.I took a flashlight to the rear section and was horrified. I couldn't get my gravel vaccum back there much less my hand into these handy little areas but knew it HAD to b cleaned.I went to my local hardware store ,bought a 6 gal shopvac modified parts to get into those little areas and began a massive rear area cleanout.there was an apparent leak between tank and rear sump area and as i disturbed the sludge some was leaking into tank .with immediate death following. I literary started throwing live critters into a 10 gal tank and managed to save a couple critters and rather than throw a fit or declare I'm done I made my little shopvac and improved my attachment s to b able to throly clean rear area,and to keep it clea n as j do the front are.A and now looking for more rock.l feel more confident in long success. The moral I guess is nothing crashes for no reSon,we just ave to find the
answer and a way to find
.fix it.hope this helps some. Off to put newly cleaned tank n together and get ready to start again.

 

[najer]

Good luck with the re start, sorry about your loss.

 

[Leemcg]

Sorry about the problems. Good luck with the restart. I’m glad it didn’t make you thrown in the towel.

 

[rusty hannon]

Good luck with the re start, sorry about your loss.

Thank you

 

[Cory]

Was it h2s being disturbed?

 

[rusty hannon]

Was it h2s being disturbed?

i honestly dont know enough about the chemical side of things but it was worse than bay slury and that i know is toxic when disturbed

 

[Cory]

i honestly dont know enough about the chemical side of things but it was worse than bay slury and that i know is toxic when disturbed

Did it smell like rotten eggs at all?

 

[rusty hannon]

Did it smell like rotten eggs at all?

it snelled like long death.we lived in rockport bat and that smell wasnt half as bad

 

[Cory]

it snelled like long death.we lived in rockport bat and that smell wasnt half as bad

Yes then it was h2s. Iirc it displaces oxygen and thus they cabt breathe, sorry about the loss.

 

[HuduVudu]

Was it h2s being disturbed?

This is NOT what happened. H2S isn't the killer.

When something like this happens what is going on is that the area that in this case couldn't be cleaned dumps organics into the main system. The main system area is aerobic and and starts to rapidly break down the organics this causes the O2 to plummet and the plummeting O2 and rising NH3/NO2 is what ends the creatures.

Anaerobic digestion is a VERY slow process, and it happens in the absence of O2 any O2 and the bacteria either die or go into hibernation.

This is the same thing that happens in very large coral spawns or in red tide.

 

[rusty hannon]

it basically boiles down to very poor tank design and worse was i didnt figure out a way to clean it before it got sooo bady

 

[Reefing_addiction]

You know we often hear someone wakes up to see a long lived tank has suddenly died overnight and noone knows why?well ,there's always an answer and yes it happened to me 2days ago.I'm quite bummed to sag the least but to b honest I've been battling something for a while now .my tank is a 28 gal jbj nano.at first look it was a great setup and wanted to try my hand ata nano.After running one for years have found a major problem and a tank killer.Of course its an aio with little separate places in back for different things but in truth its a sludge factory that is almost impossible to clean,especially a tank that's up n running. A few of my fish were telling me of this problem by demanding a water change every 3 days.I took a flashlight to the rear section and was horrified. I couldn't get my gravel vaccum back there much less my hand into these handy little areas but knew it HAD to b cleaned.I went to my local hardware store ,bought a 6 gal shopvac modified parts to get into those little areas and began a massive rear area cleanout.there was an apparent leak between tank and rear sump area and as i disturbed the sludge some was leaking into tank .with immediate death following. I literary started throwing live critters into a 10 gal tank and managed to save a couple critters and rather than throw a fit or declare I'm done I made my little shopvac and improved my attachment s to b able to throly clean rear area,and to keep it clea n as j do the front are.A and now looking for more rock.l feel more confident in long success. The moral I guess is nothing crashes for no reSon,we just ave to find the
answer and a way to find
.fix it.hope this helps some. Off to put newly cleaned tank n together and get ready to start again.

I noticed this on my 16gal aio and bought a smaller sand cleaner vacuum thing. I also use a turkey baster to blast the stuff up while I suck water out. After cleaning I always run a filter pad for several hours to catch all the crud that I didn’t vacuum out.

im sorry for your loss but HAPPY you are not giving up!

 

[Cory]

Well maybe i was thinking of nitrogen? But that isnt it in marine tanks.

Anyway definitely that desighn and the organic build up killed your fish. Sorry man.

 

[rusty hannon]

Yes then it was h2s. Iirc it displaces oxygen and thus they cabt breathe, sorry about the loss.

thank you for your info and kind words.i just hope others may find usefulness from this.and i didnt think i would affect the front display because of the divider but as soon as i started vaccuming i saw brown slury escapeing under the silicone at the dividing wall.as we say such is life and it cant keep us down thanks again